


Thereby Hangs a Tail

by XiuChen4Ever



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hybrids, Bullying, First Meetings, Hybrids, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, minor blood/gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XiuChen4Ever/pseuds/XiuChen4Ever
Summary: Jongdae sits alone on the bench, feeling as fragile as the vertebrae that allow his tail to cleanly separate from his body.  Too bad he can’t separate from his feelings so easily.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 30
Kudos: 136
Collections: EXZOO : Fourth Round





	Thereby Hangs a Tail

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Exzoo Round 4, prompt W009.
> 
> Dear prompter:
> 
> I had to write this fic in self-defense. I looked through the prompt archive before bed, saw your absolutely heartbreaking prompt, and knew I would never be able to sleep until I replaced that tragic image with a happier one. Sad baby lizards shall not go un-comforted on my watch!

Jongdae refuses to cry. He wants to, really badly, because his rump really hurts. But worse than that, his chest hurts, because this is the third time this week that he’s ended up sitting by himself at recess, sipping listlessly at a protein shake while his stupid tail writhes in his lap, spine stinging as he grows a replacement.

His tail is dead, just meat and bone, meat that his mother would tell him to eat to regain the nutrients he’s spending on growing a new one. But he can’t eat it, and he can’t let it go, either. Not while it’s still moving. Still trying to save him, to distract the bullies so Jongdae can scurry away, to hide from their taunts about not being a  _ real _ hybrid, just a human freak with a fake tail and a tongue long enough to lick the tears from his own cheeks. That he shouldn’t go to this school with them, that he should stay with the weak, sense-deprived, useless humans. His “own kind.”

But his tail  _ is _ real, and so is Jongdae. He can’t help that the mighty frill around his neck will only grow in with puberty. It’s just a pathetic little fold of skin right now, but his dad’s frill is  _ glorious. _ And Jongdae’s will be, too. He only has a year or so to wait, and then it'll look all weird and floppy for a while, but eventually it'll be an impressive thing, something that he can show off with pride, a sign of his fitness as a future mate. But not if he has to keep regenerating his tail instead of using his nutrients to grow and develop.

He’s had more than enough of this. It had been an accident at first, a kid grabbing hold of him wrong in gym class when they were learning about Ssireum. But they’d all just stared at him in horror as his tail twisted like a snake on the musty blue wrestling mats. Jongdae had just stood there, face as red as the blood covering the hands he’d clamped over the back of his gym shorts, dying to grab his poor tail up and run but unwilling to flash his suddenly-exposed rear and further his embarrassment.

Since then, it had become a game. Particularly with the predator kids, the tigers and leopards that like to poke and kick at his tail as it thrashes on the ground. But the herbivore kids are doing it now, too, the rhinoceros boy “accidentally” standing on the tip of it in the lunch line, just smiling innocently when Jongdae turned to glare—just in time for the hippo kid to shove him hard enough to stumble forward, tail left squirming under the rhino’s shoe.

It only takes a day to grow back, but that day is pure hell. Full of “Oh, who let a human boy in here?” and “Sorry, hybrids only at this table.” Even when he’s managed to keep his tail, he’s still shunned, nobody sitting near him out of loud concern of getting covered in his blood when his tail drops off again. Like it just happens spontaneously, and not because jerks keep literally jerking it from his body.

He sighs when his tail finally goes still. He should really just throw it away, having consumed his “emergency” nutrition that’s becoming more and more like a routine late-morning snack. But it’s  _ his _ tail, and he doesn’t want them to have it, even if it’s not really the bullies he’s leaving it with. He’ll take it home, shamefully coiled in his backpack, to bury in his mother’s garden with all the rest of its severed siblings.

Or he could fling it defensively at the next kid that saunters up to him. Yeah. That’s also a good plan.

The kid in question, one Jongdae doesn’t recognize, just stares down at the motionless tail at his feet. He’s some kind of mammal, that much his furry sandy ears reveal. His tail is sandy, too, flicking behind him once, enough to give Jongdae a clear view of the darker tip but providing no clues as to the hybrid’s identity.

“Uh. I think you dropped this?” The kid leans down to paw the tail once, grabbing it more firmly to pick it up when it doesn’t react to the touch. He holds it out to Jongdae, strong brows slightly knit over amber eyes. His hair, also sandy, is long enough to fall over his face a bit, but doesn’t obscure the clarity of his gaze.

“Are… Are you making fun of me?” Jongdae asks. This kid doesn’t have the cocky, chest-out swagger the bullies usually have, even when they’re miming innocence, but it could be a ruse.

“No?” The kid looks surprised to be asked, large eyes going wide and mouth lingering in the shape of an O.

“I’m not coming to get it,” Jongdae states flatly. “It hasn’t grown back enough to fill in the hole in my shorts, so if you were hoping for a free show, you’ll have to try a little harder.”

The kid’s brow wrinkles further, but he shrugs, ambling over to Jongdae’s bench to hold the limp tail out to him.

“This was yours?” he asks with a surreptitious glance behind Jongdae that won’t reveal anything with the way he has his backside glued to the bench. “Too bad—it’s really pretty.”

The statement, soft and husky, has Jongdae’s eyes tearing up again. His tail  _ is _ really pretty, a lovely metallic blue that shimmers with hints of green in the sunlight. He takes it from the kid, turning it over in his hands, bright surface hiding the dead lump of flesh inside. Rather like Jongdae, except his surface isn’t even bright anymore.

“You, uh. You okay? I mean, like. It’s supposed to come off like that?”

Jongdae gapes as the kid sits on the bench beside him, face still furrowed in confusion or concern. “What, are you, like, new or something?”

“Er, yes?” the kid runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Not blending in well, am I?”

Jongdae snorts. “Never seen a lizard hybrid before?”

“Never seen any other hybrids before, actually,” the kid says, digging a hole in the dirt below his sneaker. He gives Jongdae a shy little smile. “I’m a little sheltered, I guess.”

“A little?”

The kid laughs. It’s such a joyful sound, sandy hair turned to gold as he throws his head back to catch the sun. “Yeah, okay, a lot sheltered. We’re usually homeschooled, you know, all the cubs in the pride. But, well. My dad thought that a future leader should know how to get along with other species, so. Here I am.”

Pride?  _ Leader? _

“Oh my scales, are you, like, a lion prince or something?”

The kid flushes. “I mean. I’m just Minseok. But. When I grow up, I’m supposed to help my dad take care of everyone, so. Yeah?”

Jongdae blinks.

Then he laughs.

The kid—the flipping  _ lion— _ looks at Jongdae from beneath his bangs, looking more like a hesitant housecat than the future king of the beasts.

“Well, Minseok, I’m Jongdae. So now you know the name and face you should avoid for group projects and in the lunchroom, because associating with me is definitely not going to help any sort of political career.”

Minseok tilts his head to one side, one ear flicking. “But why? You seem like a perfectly nice guy.”

“Oh, right, they probably don’t bother to use my actual name in their gossip. But you’re looking at the fake-tailed freak, the pathetic human wannabe that has no place in a school for hybrids.”

Minseok blinks, twice, head tilting back the other way. “You don’t smell like a human.”

“Because I’m not! My mom’s a blue-tailed skink, and my dad’s a frill-necked lizard. I just don’t have my frill yet, and those jerkfaces keep pulling off my damn tail.” He scowls down at the tail in his lap.

“Oh. Wait—other kids, like, literally pulled your tail off?” Minseok’s face twists from confusion to horror. "On  _ purpose?" _

“Yeah. Again. Like my scent isn’t enough to prove my status. Or my tongue.” He flicks it out in demonstration, enjoying the way Minseok's eyebrows jump in response.

“Nobody believes I’m a lion, here, either,” Minseok says with a soft little smile. “It’s been a rough morning. The kids are all, ‘Where’s your mane? Shouldn’t you have a tufted tail?’ Like nobody else has an awkward puberty to look forward to. But I'm supposed to 'conduct myself with honor among the other species,' so I can't use my claws as long as they're only using their words.”

“I hope they all get, like, super-zits and nobody wants to kiss them.”

Minseok laughs again, and Jongdae thinks he’d do a lot to keep hearing that laugh. There’s a weird feeling in his gut that he’s been getting more and more lately, a sort of fluttery longing when he sees pretty girls or cute boys. It had always made him uncomfortable before, but here on this bench in the sun with Minseok, he finds it less bothersome, almost pleasant.

“You’re fun, Jongdae. If this is what a fake hybrid is like, then I want to join your club. We can be fake together. Watch each other's backs. And tails—pretty sure it counts as 'honorable' if I unsheathe my claws to defend someone else, and you can help me learn how this whole public-school thing works. It'd be nice not to have to ask the teacher all the time while the other kids snicker.”

He holds out his hand, pinky crooked toward Jongdae, the realest offer of friendship Jongdae’s had, made over the concept of being fake. Jongdae stuffs his tail in his backpack, wipes his hand on his already-ruined shorts, and holds his pinkie out in return.

As they link their little fingers together and press their thumbs against one another’s in allegiance, a tingle runs up Jongdae’s spine that has nothing to do with his tail.


End file.
